The Characters of Rogue One

Jyn Erso (Felicity Jones)

A streetwise delinquent who has been on her own since 15, she has fighting skills and a knowledge of the galactic underworld that the Rebel Alliance desperately needs. “She’s got a checkered past,” says Lucasfilm president and Rogue One producer Kathleen Kennedy. “She has been detained [by the Rebellion] and is being given an opportunity to be useful. And by being useful, it may commute her sentence… She’s a real survivor. She becomes a kind of Joan of Arc in the story.”

Captain Cassian Andor (Diego Luna)

Andor is a by-the-book Rebel intelligence officer, brought in to steady the volatile Erso, but he’s no square. He’s committed, steady, and practical, and has seen more than his share of combat. “He conveys a fair amount of experience and the reality of what it’s like to do this every day, to try to figure out how to resist the Empire effectively and intelligently,” says Kiri Hart, Lucasfilm’s chief of story development. “It’s not easy.”

Baze Malbus (Jiang Wen)

Heavily armored, Baze prefers a blaster to hokey religions and ancient weapons, but he is devoted to protecting his friend Chirrut at all costs. “He understands Chirrut’s spiritual centeredness, but he doesn’t necessarily support it,” Kennedy says. Baze goes along with this Force business because “it’s what his friend deeply believes,” she adds. Think of them as a little like the galactic version of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza.

Bodhi Rook (Riz Ahmed)

Bodhi is this Rebel squad’s lead pilot. He tends to be hot-headed, but any abrasiveness is overshadowed by his skills in the air — and the void of space. “He flies a lot of cargo, one of his key jobs,” Kennedy says. “And he tends to be a little tense, a little volatile, but everybody in the group really relies on his technical skills.”

Chirrut Imwe (Donnie Yen)

Pronounced chi-RUT, he’s no Jedi, but he’s devoted to their ways and has used his spirituality to overcome his blindness and become a formidable warrior. “Chirrut falls into the category of being a warrior monk,” says Kennedy. “He very much still believes in everything the Jedi were about.” He maintains that belief even though the Jedi are no longer there to protect the galaxy. As director Gareth Edwards puts it: “This idea that magical beings are going to come and save us is going away, and it’s up to normal, everyday people to take a stand to stop evil from dominating the world.”

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Director Orson Krennic (Ben Mendelsohn)

On the opposing side, this villain is an ambitious Imperial apparatchik who intends to use his squad of Deathtroopers to pulverize the Rebel uprising and ascend into the Emperor’s graces – while hopefully avoiding the wrath of his enforcer, Darth Vader. “The bad guy is a lot more terrifying when he’s really smart, and really effective,” says Knoll. “There is a lot of palace intrigue going on in the Empire, with people conspiring to move up the ranks and sabotaging each other. There’s not a lot of loyalty there.”

Deathtroopers

Death troopers were an elite variant of the Galactic Empire’s stormtrooper that were a part of the Empire’s Military Intelligence which focused on issues regarding the Imperial Navy. They wore black suits of armor. A squad of death troopers served under Director Orson Krennic’s command, wielded as his personal weapon against the Rebel Alliance. They were sometimes assigned to protect other high ranking personnel and were also present for the theft of the Death Star plans at the beginning of the Galactic Civil War. Death troopers were known to wield blaster rifles similar to the E-11, blaster pistols similar to the SE-14C, and long-range blaster rifles similar to the DLT-19 heavy blaster rifle.

Shoretroopers

Shoretroopers were a specialized variant of the Galactic Empire’s stormtroopers trained and equipped for combat in tropical environments. Stationed at the top secret Imperial military headquarters on the tropical planet Scarif, shoretroopers patrolled the beaches and bunkers of the facility.